ARC CBBC Groningen

ARC CBBC Groningen hub: developing new sustainable process based on light and electricity

To ensure a sustainable Future, there is a crucial need for coatings and materials made from renewable sources and which are produced at the lowest energy cost. Additionally, the materials of the future will have innovative properties that makes them more sustainable. At the Groningen University hub, ARC CBBC experts are working on new methods to assemble building blocks and create coatings with disruptive properties. Also, new alternative methods to produce chemicals are investigated using photochemistry and electrochemistry with the aim to implement these new technologies at a larger scale.

Large equipment available at the ARC CBBC Groningen hub:

• Transient absorption spectrometer & Wall sheet photoreactor
• Photo flow reactor
• High throughput electrochemical workstations
• UPLC-MS & TLC MS
• Fluorimeter

Three lines of research at the Groningen University hub are focusing on:

• Flow and photochemistry: The combination of photochemistry (the use of light to trigger chemical reactions) and continuous flowchemistry (opposed to batch reaction) is a very promising method in green chemistry. The design of new photoredox catalysts combined with upscaling research is used to developed the initial scale methodology.
• Electrochemistry: researchers at the hub explore the direct use of electrons to create chemical bonds to gain control on important chemical reactions and lower the energy cost of important chemical transformations.
• Synthesis of new chemical building blocks: new cross-coupling reactions and polymerization methodology are developed to produce new chemical building blocks in a sustainable way.

A word from Ben Feringa, program director at ARC CBBC Groningen hub:

"Bringing together experts from academia and industry allows us to look at the current challenges from different angles, so we can come up with original solutions"